“I'm happy to develop for any platform, but currently I find mobile Games
the most interesting. They're so fresh and different and unsolved. Also there's
a lot of crap out there and my goal right now is to prove that quality and
mobile are not mutually exclusive. I don't really have a dream Game because I
just enjoy solving interesting problems. Currently the next big problem I've
been dwelling on is about the question of how to tell a good story on mobile.
So there's that”
Game Designer Asher Vollmer of
Sirvo LLC in an interview with told
Joystiq on Thursday January 30th 2014
It’s Valentine’s weekend! But if you’re reading this, then you must be
very lonely indeed after the death of Flappy Bird!
Still hung up over the demise of Flappy Bird as chronicled in my blog article
entitled “Developer
Dong Nguyen takes down US$50000 a day Flappy Bird App - Unwanted Media
Attention leaves DotGears Game as the first In-App Advertising Gaming App”?
Now would be a good time to get into Game Development as explained in my blog article
entitled “Animation
after Kingstoon - How to make a Video Game for PC, Smartphone and Tablet”
This as Animation is a field closely related to Game Development and apparently
can net you as much as US$50,000 per day for a really good Game App. That is, at
least until Animation picks up in Jamaica with the coming of more Animation studios
as reported in “More
Production Studios, Professionals Needed For Local Animation Industry”,
Published Friday February 14, 2014, by Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer, The Jamaica Gleaner.
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So I’ve decided to preview yet another great Game that a great
replacement for Flappy Bird but is a little more on the Educational side: Threes! as
recommended by MacWorld and CNET News in their respective articles “Staff
Picks: Forget Flappy Bird, you want to play Threes”, published Feb 12, 2014
10:47 AM by Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
and “Mobile
puzzle Game Threes is a design marvel worth your time”, published February
6, 2014 1:11 PM PST by Nick Statt, CNET News.
Three’s Gameplay is Engaging –
Like Sudoku only in Multiples of Three
Available currently on Apple iTunes
as of the time of doing this review the US$1.99 Threes! is
a mathematical number puzzler that a cross between Candy Crush Saga and Sudoku,
be it the App or the dog-eared booklet that you back out and solve while
waiting on your Bus to come. The Game is much simpler than its
mathematically-suggestive name implies and it’s Gameplay is very engaging as
described in “Casual
yet challenging as you go for high scores”, published 2/07/14, CNET Reviews.
The board layout is a 4 x 4 field of number that you slide up and down or
sideways. Each idle swipe will result in new numbers jumping onto the board, so
you gotta make every move count. The aim is really to swipe 1’s and 2’s, which
are colour coded in blue and red respectively, to make sums of multiples of
three. So 1 plus 2 equals 3.
From that point on you can only slide together tiles that add up to a
multiple of threes e.g. you can slide two 3’s together to make 6’s, two 6’s
together to make 12’s, two 12’s to make 24’s etc.
The higher the score is achieved by carefully planning your swipes so
that the board doesn’t get too crowded with extra smaller value tiles due to
unnecessary moves and making as large a multiple of three as possible.
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Trust me, even if you not a math whiz, once you’ve gotten past the
US$1.99 price and played one Game, you’ll see why it was worth the price. Just
like playing Sudoku, the second play will have you hooked. If you’ve ever
played Sudoku, you’ll realized number-puzzlers, especially once so well
designed, are never boring!
Design is everything in Threes!
- Sirvo LLC only fault is not bringing Android to the party
Sirvo LLC is the Developer that designed this mathematical bit of App
wizardry. Their Design Team consists of - you guessed it - three (3) Game
Developer Professionals that contributed uniquely to Threes!
Unique Gameplay:
1.
Game Designer Asher Vollmer of indie Game studio
thatGamecompany (remember Flower and Journey!??)
2.
Illustrator Greg Wohlwend who work speak to you
from Games such as the Game app Ridiculous
Fishing
They'd worked before on the Mobile Game app Puzzlejuice
on the Apple iTunes Store in 2012, so this is a reunion of sorts for the
trio, as you can see elements of Threes! In PuzzleJuice.
More importantly, it should serve as inspiration of wanna-be Game Designers;
this is just a team of Three (no pun intended!) that made this Game that’s Tres
Magnifique (yes that was
deliberate!).
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My main grouse with this Game is that it’s not on Google Android. Just a
well; free-ness reigns supreme on the Google Play Store, as App
Developers make significantly more on Apple
iTunes where Gamers pay top dollar for a well-designed App!
Threes! A Company of Developers
– Inspiration to Game Developers in Jamaica
So if they can “mash a works” with a three-man team in a few months and
produce quality in the spare time (I’m assuming they do have day jobs) then
making a Game App as I’ve described in my blog article
entitled “Animation
after Kingstoon - How to make a Video Game for PC, Smartphone and Tablet”
should not seem so far-fetched.
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Best of all this is a paid App; at US$1.99! A local Game Designer in
Jamaica would keep at least 70% of the sales on Apple iTunes, with even more
sales once the Game goes on Google Play Store.
Freemium is not a bad model, especially if it’s a In-App Advertising
model like Flappy Bird as described in my blog article
entitled “Developer
Dong Nguyen takes down US$50000 a day Flappy Bird App - Unwanted Media
Attention leaves DotGears Game as the first In-App Advertising Gaming App”.
But Games like Threes!
Help to prove that when it comes to making great Games for smartphones and
Tablets, nothing tickles the brain better than a mathematical puzzler, Sudoku
style!
Here’s the link to the Game as well as other Games designed by members of
the trio in the past!
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